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Texas Executes Man for Corrections Officer's Death

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Forty-three-year-old Jerry Martin has ordered no more appeals filed to try to stop his scheduled lethal injection Tuesday evening.

Updated at 6:19 AM CDT on Wednesday, Dec 4, 2013

A Texas inmate was executed Tuesday evening for the death of a corrections officer during a short-lived escape from prison six years ago.

Jerry Martin, 43, requested that no additional appeals be filed on his behalf, clearing the way for his lethal injection.

Martin told relatives of the slain corrections officer that he was sorry. "I wish I could take it back, but I can't," he said.

"I hope this gives you closure. I did not murder your loved one. It was an accident. I didn't mean for it to happen, but it happened. I take full responsibility."

Martin was serving a 50-year sentence for attempted capital murder when he and another inmate, John Falk Jr., broke away from a work detail outside a Huntsville-area prison on Sept. 24, 2007.

In the ensuing chaos and gunfire, a 59-year-old prison officer on horseback, Susan Canfield, suffered fatal head injuries. Martin and Falk sped away in a stolen pickup truck but were quickly captured.

Canfield's husband and daughter were among the people watching Tuesday through a window in the death chamber.

Martin told his own friends and a brother, watching through another window, that he loved them. "You know I'm at peace. God is the ultimate judge. He knows what happened."

He took a deep breath, then snored as the drug took effect. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later at 6:27 p.m. CST.

Martin's execution was the 16th and last scheduled for this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state.

"There really isn't much I can say," one of Martin's attorneys, David Schulman, said. "He doesn't want us to do anything and he's made that clear.

"He is not crazy. This is not some delusional thing."

The day of the break, Martin and Falk were among about 75 inmates working in a vegetable patch outside the Wynne Unit prison at the northern edge of Huntsville, just a few miles from the death chamber at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit.

Authorities said the getaway began when Martin used the ruse of a broken watch to get close to an officer and snatch a weapon. He tossed it to Falk and ran to steal the truck, hit Canfield and sped off as shots were being fired. Her head struck the truck, killing her.

The prisoners abandoned the pickup about a mile away and carjacked a woman at a bank drive-thru. Huntsville police pursuing them shot out a tire in that car and the inmates fled on foot.

Falk, a convicted murderer with a life term, was apprehended within an hour. Martin was caught a few hours later, hiding in a tree.

Martin was convicted in 2009 for Canfield's death. Falk is awaiting a retrial after a judge declared a mistrial in Falk's capital murder case.

The 16 executions this year in Texas are about average in recent years for the state that accounts for nearly half of the 36 executions in the U.S. so far in 2013. Florida is second with seven. Texas has at least six scheduled for the early months of 2014.